Holy Vision

Ron Phares

August 16, 2009

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

A Reading from Mathew 6.19-6.24

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

Sermon

Being that this is likely the last Sunday I will occupy this pulpit for some time, I thought it only fitting to begin this sermon, not with a confession as has become my habit, but with a word of gratitude. I want to thank you all, and the members of the worship comity in particular, for allowing me to preach so frequently this spring and summer. It has been a blessing to me, a great learning experience and I think a very positive step on my road to ministry. So, thank you.

Truthfully, this has me a little sad and wistful. But I’m also very excited for two reasons. One, it means I can rest. Writing and giving sermons is like any worthwhile exercise: it invigorates and exhausts at the same time. And, especially now that my summer hospital chaplaincy internship has, just this past Friday, come to a close, I am righteously, if I don’t say so myself, exhausted.

The other point by which I am excited for this to be my last time up here for awhile is the reason behind that circumstance. Soon and at long last, we’re going to have a minister again. And that is truly exciting. Given the trauma ensuing during and in the aftermath of Davidson’s dismissal, I have been impressed by the commitment exhibited by the members of this church, committee participants, the staff, the board, workshop leaders and volunteers. In rocky waters, you kept this ship afloat. And for that you all deserve a tremendous amount of praise. So, if I may be so bold, on behalf of…. all of you, I would like to thank… all of you.

However, unlike me personally, we, corporately, cannot rest. In fact, the time is coming to double our efforts, to increase our commitment, to invest our character even more fully into the realization of the potential possessed by this church, which is at last, the aggregate talent, energy and disposition of the people on either side of you, and the people on either side of them and so on, which, of course includes you.

Yet, to this point, all that energy remains potential. All this commitment remains inert.

In the hospital I have come to learn that there are those patients who posses a talent for surviving. Then there are those who posses a talent for thriving. With the later group, the thrivers, it seems like they come to the hospital almost for the sole purpose of teaching me something. Their disposition and perspective are such that I find myself changed for the better without being taxed. They have life in such abundance that it overflows their being and energizes mine.

Now, with the former group, the survivors, yes, they have a sometimes miraculous talent for surviving, but not for thriving. A talent for surviving means that they are frequently sick. To be sure, they are to be admired for surviving some difficult circumstances. But they do not thrive. My friends, we have survived.

How, then, are we to thrive?

When I was a little kid, my parents hung a sign over the toilet in my bathroom. I know that’s a strange segue, but it’ll make sense when I tell you that the sign read, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.” A worthy sentiment. It occurs to me only now how curious that this was hung over the toilet. “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.” I suppose this was my parent’s sense of humor and their way of saying, with a nudge and a wink, “Hey kid, try aiming.” Of course there was a spiritual and existential message here as well. And that was not lost on me. And I think therein is a clue to how we may thrive. It strikes me though that wanting to know where you’re going and knowing where you are going are two different things. Perhaps this is the difference between surviving and thriving. After all, the process of discernment, discovery and decision making can be every bit as arduous as the execution of their conclusion, if not more so. This, among other things, is what our minister is here to help us do, to discern, discover and decide where we are going, and, indeed, who we are.

The leadership is hers. The task is ours. It reminds me of a story I was recently told. As I understand it, this is a true story. Whether or not it actually ever happened is beyond my powers of evaluation. Nonetheless it was an inspiring story in so far as it resonated perfectly with the point to which I am speaking today. As such, it may be that I’ve made most of it up. It’s still a true story.

So, this friend grew up in a family that was not exactly traditional. Nothing radical necessarily, just an atmosphere created by the parental versions of the free-thinking 60’s. The family was as functional as any other, which is to say, not very. It’s my understanding that they had less trauma, but more drama than many families, in the sense that there was no violence per se, but some wildly divergent personalities that were, in some ways, encouraged. But this led to some problems, chiefly embodied and brought to bear by their annual summer vacation.

You see, what they liked to do was pack a bunch of stuff for any and all potential circumstances, pile the five of them in a car and set out for something impressive, if ill defined, like a coast or a region. They reveled in the freedom to stop along the way wherever the interest struck them. And truth be told, they had a lot of interesting experiences going down a few of those rabbit holes.

Unfortunately, it was frequently the case that one of the siblings had to remain behind. Either one had to work off community service or another had to attend summer school. What’s more, invariably, they would find that their publicly vague destination was personally not so obtuse, just un-communicated. For instance, when they determined they were going to hit the west coast, they each had a different idea of what that would ultimately entail. One thought that meant Venice Beach, while the other thought that meant sipping lattes in the rain shadow of the Space needle and another thought it meant Sea World. Thus arguments were inevitable. Once they were resolved, it was frequently the case that they didn’t even have the necessary money to get all of them into the main attraction because they had spent most of their funds chasing passing interests on the way.

Almost invariably these trips would end in hurt feelings and pervasive disappointment. Finally, my friend took the initiative to sit the family down together and pick a particular, if peculiar destination. This was more difficult than he thought, of course, but eventually they hammered out an itinerary that was oriented to a rather more specific target they could all be excited about while still allowing some wiggle room, though not too much, for flights of fancy. But this fancy was normed by the destination, not the other way around. Now, the part that really was interesting to me was, that year, the whole family got to go. The kids stayed out of trouble and were more focused in school because they did not want to be left out this time. The two who were old enough even took part time jobs to contribute to the vacation fund. And since they had determined to go overseas, to really shoot for something grand, the family realized they had to cut back on eating out and give up cable T.V. etc, which in turn had the unforeseen effects of the family eating healthier food while also creating more time for homework, creativity and friends.

In other words, determining a destination had a systemic effect and, of course, the trip went well.

Now, I heard that story and I immediately thought about our Unitarian Universalist tradition in general. I thought of our congregation in particular. And I thought of my own faith.

You see, as effective as our tradition, congregation and faith are, they can be oh so much more so. What we need is vision, a holy vision of who we are and what we do. Recall today’s reading, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.” This is from the Sermon on the Mount as it is described in the book of Mathew. Note here that the eyes are themselves instruments of illumination. They illuminate that which they light on. Vision illuminates. Now in this case the eyes are connected inward, toward the body, so to speak. And, as is the case in much of the Bible, the clause, “so to speak,” is crucial. For here, it is enough to understand that the eyes are essentially instruments of discovery, discernment and empowerment (for they do not merely perceive but themselves illuminate). Meanwhile the body spoken of here could indeed be the biological body or it could be any system of which you are a part. Essentially, I take the passage to be in line with what so much of the modern sciences are currently saying, namely, “What you see, so will you be.”

So, what is your vision?

But beware. Vision alone is not sufficient. In fact, it may be absolutely detrimental if that vision is distorted. The passage reads, “If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.” But it goes on to reveal that, “if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” We’re talking about spiritual vision here in this passage and here in our church. Distorted vision leads to darkness. It leads to idolatry, a charge that is easily leveled at most of the incarnations of the Abrahamic traditions, that is, at most all monotheists. But idolatry is a charge that can be leveled at each one of us as individuals as well. That is to say, the self can be an idol, can distort our vision, and plunge us into darkness.

Let me give you a personal example from my recently concluded stint as a hospital chaplain. Part of the program was to get together with my fellow interns to try and uncover our blind spots as a way of helping us relate to our patients. As part of this process we read a book by the German neo-Freudian, Karen Horney. As she sees it, a great deal of neurosis can be attributed to the gulf between the idealized self and the actual self. For our purposes today, consider the idealized self a distorted vision of your character, an idol or false god, as it were. Most all of us have this distortion. When the process of life inevitably confronts you with the gap between how you are and how you think you are, you find yourself in the midst of a psychological crisis. The severity of the crisis is variable, depending on any number of factors. But what is assured is that the reaction to the threat, for such an event is always experienced as a threat, the reaction to the threat is entirely out of proportion to the reality of the situation. You are effectively insane and, more to the point, in no small amount of pain.

Consciously exploring this gap for yourself (with the quite necessary help of others or one other) is also initially painful. And here, you’ll just have to take my word for it, it is painful. And yet while the pain is acute and psychologically invasive, it is also corrective and preventative of an equally painful, frightened and chronic way of life. I had the opportunity this summer to be confronted with my own neurosis of the idealized self and am better off for it, if a little bruised yet. This is not to say that I am now perfectly aligned between my actual and idealized self. Rather, I am hoping to illustrate one of the pitfalls and benefits of vision as it applies to the individual. If your eyes, so to speak, are good, your body will be full of light. You will see the idealized self for what it is. If your eyes are bad, your body will be full of darkness and will think you are your idealized self. Pain endures. Thus, discernment is critical.

As I hope I just illustrated, this process of discernment is not merely a challenge to our corporate self, that is, our spiritual home at First UU. It can be and should be a challenge to our most intimate sense of our individual characters. As such, I can guarantee you this: pain lies ahead. For we are about to embark on a journey of self-discovery that will reveal those places where we have been lying to ourselves as a community. And if we have integrity, we will pursue those lies until we find where they are rooted in our individual selves. That action makes this place, truly, a holy place. This then really does become a sacred event. Do not pretend you can bring distortion into this venue without it destroying the event and all the intentions of those who participate in it. That may sound melodramatic. But you come here to feed your soul. What are you feeding on? This place is powerful merely by virtue of our shared attention. On top of that is the intent of that attention. What you bring here is what you find here.

So where do we start? I will offer two possibilities. They are not the only possibilities, but they both attempt to articulate where we are as a community. They are baselines from which we may begin as a global body, a local community and as individuals to envision a particular way of being and thus graduate from merely surviving to the more powerful mode of thriving.

The first possibility is a statement of faith as articulated by one of the modern sages of our tradition, Dr. David Bumbaugh. Some of you had the pleasure of hearing him offer this statement from this very pulpit during his keynote address delivered at the 2008 spring South West District Conference. In the midst of our diversity, Dr. Bumbaugh has noticed that we have a stunning amount in common in terms of our faith. I have only a little time left here. So I will paraphrase.

We believe that the universe is the expression of a process that has evolved from singularity to multiplicity, from disorder to order.

We believe that the earth and all who live upon the earth are products of the same process that swirled the galaxies into being, that we are expressions of that universal process.

We believe that all living things are members of a single community. We hold the life process itself to be sacred. Therefore we affirm that we are called to serve the planetary process upon which life depends. We believe that in this interconnected existence the well-being of one cannot be separated from the well-being of the whole.

We believe that the universe outside of us and the universe within us is one universe. Because that is so, our efforts, our dreams, our hopes, our ambitions are the dreams, hopes and ambitions of the universe itself. We believe that our efforts to understand the world and our place within it are an expression of the universe’s deep drive toward meaning. We believe that the moral impulse that weaves its way through our lives is threaded through the universe itself and it is this universal longing that finds outlet in our best moments.

We believe that our location within the community of living things places upon us inescapable responsibilities. We are commanded to serve life and serve it to the seven times seventieth generation.

We believe that those located on the margins have important contributions to make and that in some curious way, we are all located on the margins.

We believe that all that functions to divide us from each other and from the community of living things is to be resisted in the name of that larger vision of a world everywhere alive, everywhere seeking to incarnate a deep, implicate process that called us into being, that sustains us in being, that transforms us as we cannot transform ourselves, that receives us back to itself when life has used us up. Not knowing the end of that process, nonetheless we trust it, we rest in it, and we serve it.

The second possibility that I offer is from a much less esteemed, though I hope, no less earnest a source. Namely: me. One of the first runs in the pulpit I invited you all to take part in a ritual that I felt embodied our faith. And if you will indulge me, I would like to return to it. It is not only a part of my vision for our movement and our congregation to develop embodied symbolic articulations of our faith, it also seems like coming full circle, that I will leave on a similar note to how I began. So, if you would, please take a moment to move so that you are all sitting next to one another.

When we have completed this ritual, please stand, stretch out, shake hands and say hello and thanks to the folks in your vicinity. These are the people with whom you share your spirit and who will cooperate with you to find a vision that carries us from surviving to thriving. Look on them with good eyes. For what you see, so you are.

For now, if you would, hold out both of your hands, palm up. This is a gesture of openness, of asking and receiving. If this next gesture makes you uncomfortable, it’s okay. Honest religion often takes us out of our comfort zone. Keep your left hand open. But with your right hand, place two or more fingers on the wrist of the neighbor to your right, over here on the side a little and under the thumb. If you are on an aisle or sitting by yourself, hold your hand open and feel the qualities of the air.

You may close your eyes or not. However you are comfortable. Breathe in and exhale slowly, as if you were meditating. And keeping that breath intentional, consider how touch affirms the inherent worth and dignity of every person, how touch embodies acceptance of one another and is a first step towards the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice.

Consider that through your fingerprints, you can feel the pulse of your neighbor. Through your singularity, you touch the life force.

Finally, see if you can coordinate your breathing with the rhythm of your neighbor’s heart beat and let that coordination expand in your imagination to include the rhythms of everyone here as nodes on the interdependent web of all existence and facets of the sum that is greater than all these parts. Listen now to breath and blood and life. At one time, be grounded, be here, transcend.

Amen.

Take a minute and say thanks to the folks around you. This is your church.